Finnish city thrives as it builds nuclear plant

November 16, 2008|By John Tagliabue The New York Times

RAUMA, Finland — The cafe where Paivi Alanko-Rehelma serves coffee and smoked fish stands practically in the shadow of a sprawling building site on the island of Olkiluoto where Finland is erecting a nuclear power plant, the island's third, and Finland's fifth in the past 30 years.

Like many of her neighbors who have grown accustomed to nuclear energy, Alanko-Rehelma picks no bones with the new reactor. "It's now safe, it saves nature, it's cheaper," she said, pouring a visitor a steaming cup of coffee.

No one is certain when the plant, which has been plagued by construction delays, will be finished. But whenever it does come on line, the reactor will be a new cog in the works of Finland's national energy policy, which seeks to diversify the country's sources of energy and reduce its reliance on Russia for cheap electricity.

The almost 4,000 migrant laborers from more than 30 countries, including Poland and Estonia, working at the new power plant have lifted business in stores in downtown Rauma and made possible the opening last year of two new shopping malls on the edge of town. Local building contractors have been buoyed by orders to carry out some of the reactor work. Moreover, taxes paid by the migrant workers and French and German engineers who have come to the city bring in more than $2.5 million a year.

The only large-scale resistance to nuclear energy in Finland comes from Greenpeace, which cites the hazard of radioactivity and the siphoning of money from investment in alternative carbon-free energy sources like wind, sun and tides.